Sydneysiders will be treated with a little bit of the Venice Architecture Biennale when Australia’s exhibition from the 2014 event is premiered as part of the 2014 Sydney Architecture Festival.

Augmented Australia 1914 – 2014 is a virtual exhibition launching on 31 October - on the eve of the Festival – presented free of charge until 15 December 2014 at Customs House in Sydney.

The exhibition takes visitors on a virtual journey to 22 of Australia’s most intriguing unrealised architecture projects, showcasing 11 historical and 11 contemporary projects from around the country designed over the past one hundred years that, for various reasons, were never built.

Virtual 3D models, images, voiceovers and animations, activated by the specially designed Augmented Australia App (download), will bring the projects to life giving visitors a unique insight into the projects that could have been.

The exhibition will be free of charge and held at Customs House and other selected sites around Sydney and Parramatta throughout the course of the festival. Customs House will feature trigger images of each project while real-world scale 3D models will be geographically positioned around the city and at Parramatta.

Projects on show will include the alternative vision for the Sydney Opera House and a Roman Catholic pilgrimage site in Western Australia. Others include a different design for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, a new ’skin’ for Sydney’s UTS building and a different concept for the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park. Australia’s new pavilion in Venice by Denton Corker Marshall, currently under construction, also features in the exhibition.

Through the free Augmented Australia App visitors will be able to experience these buildings as they were intended to be, including the spectacular 60 metre high ceilings and stained glass windows of Nervi’s unbuilt cathedral or the centre of Harry Seidler’s 1952 design of the Melbourne Olympic Stadium in Sydney Harbour.

The Sydney Architecture Festival runs from 1-10 November 2014 at locations across greater Sydney. More information is available here:

ON SHOW:


Raymond McGrath (Architect), Maurice Lambert (Sculptor), ANZAC Memorial, Hyde Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Competition entry 1930. Digital Reconstruction by Tim Mettam, Elliot Lind and Leo Showell. Courtesy: felix.

Susan Dugdale & Associates, Darwin City Waterfront Signature Restaurant, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Competition entry 2006. Digital Reconstruction by Keith Reid and Scott Horsburgh. Courtesy: felix.


Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects, Jewel Cave Visitor Centre, Yallingup, Western Australia, Australia. Competition entry 2010. Digital Reconstruction by Mark Parsons. Courtesy: felix.


m3architecture, Lodge on the Lake, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Competition Entry 2013. Digital Reconstruction by Mark Parsons. Courtesy: felix.


FJMT (Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp), Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Competition entry 2001. Digital Reconstruction by Matt Delroy-Carr. Courtesy: felix.


Glenn Murcutt, Silver City Museum, Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. Project 1987-8. Digital Reconstruction by Eliza Langham and Ara Casella. Courtesy: felix.


Andrew Maynard Architects, Styx Valley Protest Shelter, Styx Valley, Tasmania, Australia. Project 2008. Digital Reconstruction by Mark Parsons. Courtesy: felix.


LAVA, Tower Skin, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Project 2009-10. Digital Reconstruction by Keith Reid and Scott Horsburgh. Courtesy: felix.


John Andrews, No.2 Bond Street, 1984-6, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Digital Reconstruction by Matt Delroy-Carr. Courtesy: felix.

ARM Architecture, Carlton and United Brewery Redevelopment, Project 1995, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Digital reconstruction by Keith Reid and Scott Horsburgh. Courtesy: felix.


Tessellate a+d, Hybrid Cathedral, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Project 2013. Digital Reconstruction by Keith Reid and Scott Horsburgh. Courtesy: felix.

Minifie van Schaik, Caught Unawares, Project 2013, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Digital Reconstruction by Ben Juckes. Courtesy: felix.